1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management system including an information processing apparatus configured to produce a job, an image processing apparatus configured to execute an image processing according to a job, and a server apparatus configured to manage log information corresponding to a job.
2. Description of the Related Art
A management system is known which manages network-connected peripheral apparatus/devices such as a printer, a scanner, a facsimile machine, a copying machine, or a multifunction peripheral device (MFP).
In such a management system, a job management method is known to acquire a large number of pieces of print job information and manage them in an image processing system.
To properly manage jobs (job accounts) for each of users or groups, it is necessary to acquire information associated with jobs performed in peripheral apparatuses.
Some systems are configured to store character strings or page images included in jobs printed by users and check print logs.
FIGS. 22 to 24 illustrate some examples of methods of acquiring job information.
Referring to FIGS. 22 to 24, a process performed by a printer to generate log information using a PDL (Page Description Language) is described below.
In the examples of print systems shown in FIGS. 22 to 24, a host, a printer and a server configured to manage log information are capable of communicating with each other.
As shown in FIG. 22, the printer 200 produces log information based on information included in job information 500 produced by a printer driver installed in the host 100, and the printer 200 transmits the produced log information as log information 400B to the server 300. If the server 300 receives the log information 400B produced by the printer 200, the server 300 stores it in a storage device disposed in the server 300.
In many cases, the printer 200 is shared by a plurality of hosts 100.
In this case, when character strings or page images included in jobs are stored and print logs are checked, a large processing load is imposed on the printer 200 in the process of producing logs.
In a case where a low-cost low-performance printer is used as the printer 200, there is a possibility that a low-performance hardware configuration makes it possible to produce log information associated with character strings or page images. Furthermore, it is not assured that information included in the job information 500 is always valid.
On the other hand, in a print system in which a host produces log information, as shown in FIG. 23, the printer driver installed in the host 100 produces log information 400A of a print job and transfers it to the server 300. Thereafter, the job information 500 is transferred to the printer 200.
In this case, if the host 100 is configured to authenticate users, it is possible to acquire high-accuracy log information 400A including information indicating names of users who actually performed printing.
In many cases, the host 100 is higher in performance than the printer 200, and each host is capable of collecting logs. Thus, in the system in which the host produces log information, it is possible to efficiently process the log information 400A.
However, in this system, when the printer 200 actually performs printing, it is not assured that log information associated with the printing has been acquired by the host 100.
In the case of a print system in which the host 100 and the printer 200 are configured to produce log information, as shown in FIG. 24, the printer driver installed in the host 100 produces log information 400A of a print job and transfers it to the server 300. Thereafter, the job information 500 is transferred to the printer 200. The printer 200 also produces log information 400B and transmits it to the server 300. The server 300 stores the received log information 400A and 400B in the storage device.
This provides a most reliable method. However, in this method, the server 300 needs to store and manage two pieces of log information 400A and 400B for one print job.
To store two pieces of log information 400A and 400B, a large memory space is necessary. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-308184 discloses a technique to avoid the above problem. In this technique, an ID is assigned to each print job and two pieces of log information 400A and log information 400B are merged together with the ID by the server 300.
However, this technique has a problem similar to that of the conventional technique described above with reference to FIG. 22 in which the printer produces log information using the PDL
That is, to store character strings or page images included in jobs and check print logs, a very great processing load is imposed on the printer 200 in the production of logs.
Furthermore, when a low-cost but low-performance printer is used as the printer 200, low-performance hardware makes it difficult to produce log information associated with character strings or page images.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-308184 also discloses a job management system in which a client computer acquires job information via communication from a printer, and a job account server manages the job information acquired by client computer.
In a system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-316554, a printer acquires jobs received from a plurality of client computers and transmits job logs to a job account server, which in turn manages the received job logs.
In the conventional log management systems, as described above, job information is acquired from a host or a printer, and a job account server manages the job information in a merged form.
However, all log management systems described above have the following problems.
More accurate information can be provided by the log information 400A produced by the host 100 used by a user to actually perform printing than can be provided by log information produced by other apparatus. However, the log management systems described above do not support the production of the log information 400A by the host 100.
The host 100 has a hardware resource with higher performance than that of the printer 200. Thus, it is desirable to produce the log information 400A by the host 100. However, the log management systems described above do not support the production of the log information 400A by the host 100.
Besides, it is difficult for the printer 200 to determine whether printing is performed for a job whose log information has been acquired by the host 100.
Furthermore, in the conventional job management systems, although the job account server is capable of managing host logs or printer logs in the merged form, it is not assumed that image logs are managed in the merged form.
Therefore, as to image logs, the job account server separately acquires log information from the host and log information from the printer and separately stores and manages the acquired log information.
That is, the job account server manages the image logs acquired from the host or the printer in a duplicated manner, and thus the resources are not used in an efficient manner.
Another problem in the job management systems is that when a printing apparatus prints an image of each page according to an acquired job, it is difficult to determine whether data of each page has not been tampered with.